November Days of Gratitude: The Camera in My Pocket

My Visual EvolutionImages used to rattle around in my brain.I’d take great pains to collect them like seashells or pebblesfrom the beach,clenched fingers holding tight,spilling some here or there, trying to remember and savor all I’d seen.

Back then, a bulky camerawould weigh down my shoulders;few images would scroll and roll,one frame to the next; timing and lighting might vexan otherwise perfect shot.Patience was notnegotiable.

Now my fingers clench around my phone, a camerain disguise. It’s so sly. It can capture pictures in pixels the second my eyes catch a glimpse. Images that used to slip from memorynow slip into files,piles and piles stack up, virtual shoe boxes packed full.

These days, I admit to being very nostalgic for film — but my life, right now, doesn’t have the time to process and develop much of anything, let alone images captured on rolls of Kodachrome. There are times, though, when the camera in my pocket — the one disguised as a phone — allows me to capture something special, in spite of the rush and bustle of life. For that, I am grateful.

Stopped at a red light, I snapped this picture of the sky but it seems I found the portal into the Upside Down.I love this winter’s Starbucks cups — moreso because this cup of coffee started a day spent with my high school senior. We don’t have many Starbucks mornings left where we can linger.A day at St. Mary’s College, on tour.De La Salle watches over the campus.St. Mary’s College in autumn.A floor in the Math and Science building pays tribute to Fibonacci. There’s math in there, somewhere.After a night of rain, the roses were weighted down by raindrops.